It’s the 20 year anniversary Ashley Rowe Palafox’s original “Barefoot and in the Kitchen” vegan cookzine! This week on the pod, Ashley joins us to talk about the inception of the zine, how punk helps you let go of perfectionism, and updating the zines for the new collection, “Cook Your Own F*cking Life.”
There are new forms of ecommerce popping up every day, on every website from Instagram and Tiktok to Pinterest. Is selling online through Tiktok right for your books?
This week, Jane Friedman of the Bottom Line is back to talk to Joe and Elly about the growing popularity of TIktok Shop, and if she thinks it’s worth a publisher’s time.
Angela Engel is the founder and CEO of The Collective Book Studio, one of Publisher Weekly’s 2024 fastest-growing publishers. This week on the pod, Angela hangs out with Joe and Elly to talk about how Collective got where they are, how they develop their titles and marketing plans, outreach, bookstore engagement, and so so so much more!
Portland, OR— Microcosm Publishing has entered a worldwide publishing agreement for the We Are Stronger Than Censorship campaign’s merchandise.
Founded in 2024 by the nonprofit Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and EveryLibrary Institute, We Are Stronger Than Censorship works to share inclusive books with readers in communities across the U.S., especially those impacted by efforts to restrict titles featuring Black, Queer, and other under-represented characters and themes. Microcosm will serve as distributor for the organization’s new sideline collection of stickers.
“This is a big deal, and one we’re proud to be part of,” says Microcosm founder and CEO, Joe Biel. “We Are Stronger Than Censorship won an award for innovation because they fundraised to put censored books into the hands of readers. They are ablaze with buzz and we expect stores will be excited to get behind their efforts, too.”
With each individual book “challenge”—i.e. with each ban attempt—We Are Stronger Than Censorship buys and donates two books to offset it. The campaign will purchase and donate two books to communities in need for every sixteen stickers sold through Microcosm.
Lee Wind, co-creator of We Are Stronger Than Censorship and Chief Content Officer of IBPA, explains, “The idea is to make the numbers work against the folks who are so eager to limit others’ freedom to read. Some people are challenging over 400 books at a time! If they knew that meant this program would buy and distribute over 800 books, maybe they would slow their roll. For us, this campaign is like pulling an emergency brake on a runaway censorship train.”
Since its founding, We Are Stronger Than Censorship has gained more than 75 institutional partners, including Microcosm, allowing the campaign to purchase and donate 2,800 books to offset 1,400 book challenges.
Wind adds, “I’m thrilled about our stickers being available through Microcosm. This is how we’re going to scale this thing: selling a lot of stickers, spreading the word, and coming together as a community that believes in the freedom to read.”
We Are Stronger Than Censorship items are now available for retailers and direct customers to order through Microcosm’s site and Edelweiss.
Can you really judge a book by its cover? Absolutely, yes. A lot of work goes into planning a book’s cover design— marketing goals, representing the author’s work, making it appealing to the target audience, legibility, and so much more.
This week on the pod, Joe walks us through the things Joe takes into consideration for designing our covers.
Note: For those just listening to audio, there’s an accompanying slideshow in the video where Joe is showcasing varying covers! Still valuable info with just audio, but we recommending trying to catch the video of this as well.
Lindsay Sims McKee is a professor and digital marketing expert based in Ohio.
This week on the podcast, Lindsay joins us to talk universal marketing truths and strategies, like determining who your customer is (hint: it’s not you!), their needs, and publishing books that fill those needs.
Buckle in, aspiring marketing pros, for this fun, accessible, and jargon-lite episode!
Our culture treats the artist toiling in solitude like a romantic idea, but that’s rarely how it happens in the real world. Writing doesn’t have to be isolating—art flourishes in community. If you know where to look, there’s a whole world of writers out there, waiting to connect.
Jessie Kwak, author of From Chaos to Creativity, returns with a guide on networking and building your community, with clear and easy to follow advice. Learn how to form your own “writing constellation,” how to create an elevator pitch, tips on reaching out (without being a creep), and how to navigate things like events, classes, workshops, and more. A great read for writers new and old to shift their mindset away from the solo grind to enthusiastic collaboration and building an open, welcoming support network.
Do you publish what YOU want to read, or what the market says people want to read? We’re back with last year’s PNBA trade show talking to publishers about how they decide what they acquire and publish, and the various things that go into it.
Welcome to the Indie Solidarity Project! Part of Microcosm’s special sauce is our network of amazing retailers around the world—some of whom are traditional bookstores, but many more who aren’t book-focused—we peddle “books for stores who don’t sell books!” as our sales team puts it. Much like our Bookstore Solidarity Project, this series highlights our partners who run all kinds of small and independent businesses, blazing their own trails, supporting their communities, and growing our small world.
For our series debut, we’re stoked to feature Sisters in Christ of New Orleans (the city with the most Microcosm authors, FYI!). Dive in to learn more about their infoshop roots, favorite comix artists, and beyond:
Your name, pronouns, and role at the store? Bryan Funck, he/him, owner
Tell us a little bit about the store and your community We’re a small record and book store that grew out of the Iron Rail Infoshop, specializing mainly in punk/indie/underground, radical literature, small press comics and zines. We’ve been at the current location for about nine years; we were in a smaller spot for a year or two before that; and we handled the records at Iron Rail for about six years. No cats currently, but we love the cat down at our friends’ shop Blue Cypress Books!
How was the store’s name chosen? We wanted something that reflected New Orleans culture without being fleur de lis and the saints, Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street, alligators and 504, etc. We also wanted to stay away from a generic record shop name to create some mystique.
How did you get into your area of business? Distro’ing records at punk and hardcore shows in the late 90s then running the record rack at the anarchist bookstore.
What’s something about your store that you think will surprise people? We’re not religious.
What are some of you favorite ways your community supports your store? Someone got an enormous tattoo of our shop logo on their abdomen.
What are some of your favorite way to support your community? Buying and selling local records, tapes, books, and zines! Disseminating relevant information to our radical allies! Using local artists to print and screen flyers and shirts, using the local pressing plant NORP to make records, using local video techs for creating shorts.
Trying to get high-profile reviews for your books can feel like a rat race. So many publishers competing for the same space in the same publications (and space in readers’ brains). But do reviews really matter? Are they worth the time publishers put into getting them?
This week on the podcast, we’re back with the booksellers and publishers of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association tradeshow to get their thoughts on the importance of book reviews.
